TBFF on Etsy + Monotypes as a Learning Tool

It’s been a bustling week in my studio in the midst of the holiday season. If anyone would like to give an existing TBFF print as a gift this year, now is the time to order from my Etsy Shop so it can reach you before the holiday!

Owls, snakes, elephants! This is an order of work that was shipped out today.

Also available are handmade linocuts of owls, moons, snakes, mushrooms, poppies, and a beautiful Atlas Moth carved by friend and artist Don Mackessy during the predecessor project to my Thailand Burma Flora Fauna Kickstarter— a collaborative effort to make imagery about the plants and animals of sunny California.

A linocut of the American Desert Hare (or Black Tailed Jackrabbit) and a California Poppy.

An intricate linocut of an Atlas Moth carved by friend and artist Don Mackessy during a collaborative project.

Monotypes as a Learning Tool

In this final stage of the Thailand Burma Flora Fauna project, I am finishing the last of the print designs, and reworking existing images before creating the permanent plates that are to make up the bulk of this series of prints.

Burning the midnight oil reworking existing designs before making the final plates!

Currently, I am in a somewhat awkward position in that this next step requires that all of the print designs are to be completed at once, so that supporters of this project can see the available options simultaneously before choosing which prints they would like to receive.

We are nearly there– and I appreciate all of your patience! It is important to me that the print designs are equally strong, and that together they make up a cohesive body of work.

I have been making monotypes as learning tools to help me understand what is or is not working about a particular print design for the TBFF project. They have been especially useful for a print featuring a landscape of Bagan, Burma, as well as another image of an Asian Elephant.

The painted copper plate of a monotype featuring the Asian Elephant.

The ghost print of the Asian Elephant monotype is a one-of-a-kind print after the copper plate is wiped clean.

Monotype: A monotype is a one-of-a-kind print made by painting or drawing directly onto a flat copper plate, and then running that plate through a printing press leaving the ink image on paper. My monotypes are unique in that after the print is pulled, I draw back into each image with black and white printing ink, followed by hand stamping an signing each piece.

Monotypes are different from copper plate etchings in that once the prints are pulled, the flat plate is wiped clean, never to be printed again. If it were an etching or engraving, you could reprint more at will.

Usually, after the initial monotype print, you can pull one or two additional “ghost prints”– much lighter variations with less ink and often greater character. The outcome for each one is very different!

Monotypes featuring a Thai Buddha statue. You can see the variation between the first print and the two additional ghost prints.

Regal cat monotype.

A detail of a monotype ghost print that helped me to work out the composition of an upcoming TBFF print., featuring Bagan, Burma.

Thank you all so much for your ongoing support of my project! I appreciate all of you who reach out to me through email and across social media platforms– on Facebook, Etsy, and Instagram. Thank you!